Someone figured out that the Jif peanut butter logo looks almost exactly the same upside down — and it will blow your mind

People on the internet have discovered some shocking revelations about the logo on a jar of Jif peanut butter.

On April 16, Twitter user @SeeDeng noticed that the logo on a jar of Jif peanut butter looks the same upside down as it does right-side up.

And in 2016, people on Reddit realised that even though many of them were convinced that the Jif peanut butter logo used to say “Jiffy,” Jiffy peanut butter never existed.

The widespread false memory of the peanut butter label saying “Jiffy” can be attributed to the “Mandela Effect.”

The Mandela Effect refers to a collective misremembering of a specific fact or event, and while nobody is entirely sure why it takes place, there is a psychological explanation.

Many of us have seen or eaten from a jar of Jif peanut butter at some point in our lives and never really thought too much about it. However, people on the internet discovered that there is more to the logo than it seems.

On April 16, Twitter user @SeeDeng noticed that the Jif logo looks almost exactly the same upside down

The user @SeeDeng posted a photo of a jar of Jif peanut butter held right-side up and compared it to a photo of the same jar of peanut butter held upside down.

Due to the lack of serifs – small lines attached to the end of a stroke – on the font, the curvature of the “f” that mimics the curvature of the “j,” and the under-emphasised bar on the “f,” the Jif logo looks almost exactly the same when it’s read upside down.

Some people speculated that this was a clever marketing technique

However, it seems that the Jif logo was not intentionally designed this way.

A representative from the J. M. Smucker company, which has owned the Jif peanut butter brand since 2002, told INSIDER, “We have no information in our archive that suggests the logo was intended to look the same upside down.”

Nevertheless, it does seem uncanny that the Jif logo reads the same upside down as it does right-side up.

People on the internet have also noticed another surprising fact about the Jif peanut butter logo – namely, that many people recall that it used to say ‘Jiffy’

In an ongoing discussion on Reddit that started in 2016 and rages on to the present, people are convinced that Jif peanut butter used to be called “Jiffy.”

“Jiffy was/is a real peanut butter,” Reddit user blue-flightsaid. “I didn’t see Jif until I was in my twenties and I thought Jiffy rebranded to sound more modern or something.”

Many people appear to have extremely vivid memories of Jiffy peanut butter.

Reddit user Listenbuddaysaid they distinctly “remember holding a jar of Jiffy” in their hands, and another user JuliaGulia1964said that they “ate Jiffy nearly every single dang day as a kid.”

Reddit user 1Juliemom1 even recounted buying both Jif and Jiffy at the store one day and recalled that “the Jiffy jar was tall like peanut butter jars today look” while “the Jif jar was short and had a larger diameter.”

But Jiffy peanut butter never existed

“Jif was never named Jiffy,” a representative from the J.M. Smucker Company told INSIDER.

In September 2016, YouTube user MoneyBags73 posted a video explaining that the reason why so many people falsely remember Jiffy peanut butter is because of the “Mandela Effect.” A term coined by paranormal consultant Fiona Broome, the Mandela Effect refers to a collective misremembering of a fact or event.

The revelation that Jif peanut butter was never really called ‘Jiffy’ has shocked some people

“The fact that Jiffy peanut butter apparently never existed is actually traumatic for me as this product is a very nostalgic memory for me,” YouTube user bluestarr78 said in a comment on MoneyBags73’s video.

Nobody really knows why the Mandela Effect takes place. Some, like Broome, speculate that it’s caused by movement between parallel universes. Others propose that it’s evidence that time travellers are changing history.

However, the Mandela Effect may have more to do with human psychology. Psychologists Neil Dagnall and Ken Drinkwater explained in an Independent article that the majority of Mandela Effect cases can be attributed to memory errors and social misinformation.

Some believe that the ‘Jiffy’ confusion could have something to do with another popular peanut butter: Skippy

In a separate Reddit discussion that started in 2017, Redditor kakka_rot said that people might simply be combining the names of Jif peanut butter with Skippy peanut butter to make “Jiffy.”

Others on Reddit seemed to agree, and pointed out that other brands with “Jiffy” in the name or slogan might add to the confusion. For example, Redditor beholdmyresponse felt that some might be remembering Jiffy Pop popcorn, while Redditor MyOwnGuitarHerosuggested that the Jiffy Lube motor oil brand and the popular “I’ll be there in a jiffy” catchphrase were to blame.

In the same thread, Redditor AlreadyTaken082pointed out that “Jiffy” is commonly used by television shows to avoid copyright infringment. Called “Fictionalized Product Displacement,” directors and producers of shows are able to use a fictional product that closely resembles that of a real brand in their shows to avoid being sued by large companies.

Jif’s early marketing campaigns may also be a reason why some people mistakenly believe it was called ‘Jiffy’

J. M. Smucker’s representative told INSIDER that a likely reason why so many people think Jif peanut butter used to be called “Jiffy” is that early marketing campaigns would often refer to Jif peanut butter as an easy meal that can be done “in a Jif-fy.” This may have led people to conflate the peanut butter’s tagline with its name. Over time, this confusion may have created a false memory in some people’s minds, leading them to misremember Jif peanut butter as “Jiffy” peanut butter over and over again – to the point where they were convinced that the false memory was true.

Whatever the real reason behind the brand name confusion, it’s clear that there’s a lot more than meets the eye when it comes to the Jif peanut butter label.